Saturday, April 26, 2014

New flagship smartphone launches are often accompanied by a rush of users trading in older phone models as they upgrade, and data surrounding which models saw increased trade-in volumes can give us a good idea of where business is coming from as people purchase new phones. If data provided to BGR by Gazelle is any indication, early Galaxy S5 buyers were already Samsung device owners in large part, with a comparably small amount of new business coming over from the iPhone.

According to data from leading gadget trade-in service Gazelle, the volume of used Samsung phones being sold using the company’s site exploded on April 11th, the day Samsung’s Galaxy S5 went on sale at all four nationwide U.S. wireless carriers. The firm’s data shows that Samsung device trade-ins were up 69% over the Galaxy S4′s launch day and 209% over trade-in volumes on the day the Galaxy S III first went on sale in 2012.

In terms of attracting new business from the iPhone camp, however, things didn’t look as impressive.

Gazelle saw iPhone trade-in volumes drop 35% compared to where they were last year on the day the Galaxy S4 launched in the U.S. Interestingly, the Galaxy S4 didn’t even go on sale at all U.S. carriers on the same day last year, so the Galaxy S5 saw fewer trade-ins from a much larger group of potential customers.

Of course, this is just one data point and it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. We’ll have to wait for usage tracking companies to start releasing mobile traffic share data and other similar statistics for a more comprehensive look at whether or not Samsung’s latest flagship phone might have stolen a good amount of business away from Apple.

As for which older Samsung models users traded in most during the S5′s launch, Gazelle says Verizon’s Galaxy S III and S4 trade-in volumes spiked 114% and 82% during launch weekend, respectively, compared to the prior weekend. AT&T Galaxy S4 trade-ins were up 250% over that same time period, and T-Mobile Galaxy S3 trade-ins ballooned 175% on April 11th compared to the prior day.